On North Korea, Trump says ‘Libya model would take place if we don’t make a deal’

Will Trump’s hard ball style of deal-making win the day?

First, John Bolton again opened his big mouth referring to ‘the Libya model’, where a nation that denuclearized experienced a US backed regime change that has left the nation a failed state ever since, right when Washington is supposedly attempting to broker a denuclearization deal with a country that Trump has been threatening to bomb, as well as get a peace settlement established.

Obviously, Bolton’s statements were, by some parties, construed as referring to the regime change program that has made Libya such a successful, modern, slave-trading, violence ridden failed state, rather than the denuclearization process that was accomplished there in 2003-2004.

In short, as long as the peace talks translate into ‘America First’, Kim isn’t negotiating. Kim is telling Trump that this is about ‘making Korea whole again’, and has a ‘Korea first’ motto, putting the two parties on opposite sides of the arena.

After all, the means cited to spur the denuclearization talks are essentially the same as those that were used with Gadhafi’s nuclear disarmament, and that is the threat of delivering US-made bombs and boots on the ground, whether American or more ‘moderate’ ones.

Following Bush’s invasion of Iraq, Bush made clear that “we have clarified the choices left to potential adversaries”, meaning, get rid of your WMDs or we’re coming after you.

However, it may very well be that it is that very ‘Libya model’ that has led to a stall in progress towards peace and nuclear disarmament on the Korean peninsula, as Libya disarmed, but still got the ‘America first’ treatment, or rather, ‘freedom’ and ‘democracy’ exported to their country.

However, Trump seems to be well prepared to reimpose it in Korea, definitely referring to Gadhafi’s overthrow and murder, if he doesn’t get what he wants. Once again, more of Trump’s ‘art of deal making’, the ‘take it or leave it’ approach; or, this time, ‘take it or die’. The AFP reports:

US President Donald Trump tried to put his summit with North Korea’s Kim Jong Un back on track Thursday, offering the North Korean leader guarantees of staying in power if he abandons nuclear weapons.

As prospects for a historic summit next month between the two leaders dimmed, Trump told reporters that if the meeting were to go ahead successfully, Kim “will get protections that will be very strong.”

“He’d be in his country and running his country. His country would be very rich.”

But the pledge came barbed with a warning that if talks fail, Kim could suffer the same fate as Libya’s Moamer Kadhafi, who was overthrown by rebels and murdered.

Trump’s comments came as Pyongyang appeared to cool to the idea of the sit-down in Singapore on June 12, blaming US demands for “unilateral nuclear abandonment.”

Trump suggested Kim’s about-face may have been at the behest of Chinese leader Xi Jinping.

“It could very well be that he’s influencing Kim Jong Un,” Trump said, citing a recent meeting between the pair, their second in a month’s time. “We’ll see what happens.”

After months of photo-ops and diplomatic backslapping, a North Korean official was quoted as saying the summit may not go ahead.

The official also groused about Trump’s National Security Advisor John Bolton, who referred to Libya as a model for denuclearization.

In 2003, Kadhafi agreed to the elimination of his country’s nuclear program and chemical weapons arsenal to gain sanctions relief.

But Trump, and Pyongyang, appeared to zero in on what happened a decade later following the Libyan revolution, when NATO-backed rebels ousted the government and killed Kadhafi.

“The Libyan model isn’t a model that we have (in mind) at all when we’re thinking of North Korea,” Trump said while sitting at arm’s length from Bolton in the Oval Office.

“If you look at that model with Kadhafi, that was a total decimation. We went in there to beat him,” Trump said.

“Now, that model would take place if we don’t make a deal, most likely,” he warned Pyongyang.

“But if we make a deal, I think Kim Jong Un is going to be very, very happy.”

Will Kim use his threat of walking away from this process to force Trump to move in his direction, or will Trump’s threats of not only backing away, but launching hostile initiatives in Kim’s direction, win the day on this process moving forward (if moving can be a description of the present situation, and as if there even will be a forward)?

Of interest here isn’t purely the North Korea angle on this story, but also the casual manner in which the wholesale destruction of a nation and countless crimes against humanity were, and continue to be, committed are being mentioned, and how America is owning its participation in it, while assuming no responsibility for cleaning up its mess, or for the horrors that America has unleashed in North Africa.

Also of interest, note that many of Europe’s migrants are fleeing the failed state that Libya has become, a situation that the White House admits that it created, a problem for Europe that their strategic and defensive ally has handed to them complete with gift wrapping and a bow.

Trump isn’t the start of problems that Europe is faring, they find their origin in American foreign policy, as the Libya situation went down under his predecessor, he’s just putting ‘America first’ in big bold letters for them, and maybe also for the Koreans, too.